The loan was disclosed in Anderson’s campaign finance filing (for the period of January 12-July 11, 2008) and the money came from Seth Rubenstein, an attorney in Brooklyn.

Ravi Batra, Tingling’s finance chair, said in a letter to Andrew Cuomo’s office, dated today, that the loan could “serve to undermine public confidence” in the court. In a brief interview Batra told me he wants an investigation to “insure that there is no pay-to-play violation, and that all contributions are legal and not criminal.”

Batra’s complaint is that such a large loan from a trust and estates lawyer could, theoretically, result in that contributor getting a disproportionate amount of work from the court, and, in general, favored treatment from the judge.